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"Don't wait for extraordinary opportunities. Seize common occasions and make them great."

–Orison Swett Marden (1848-1924)

Violent crime in the US fell significantly in the first quarter of 2024 compared to last year, according to the FBI's Quarterly Uniform Crime Report published yesterday. (See? All news isn’t bad.)

The data, collected from participating police departments across the country, shows overall violent crime decreased by 15% nationally in January-March compared to the same months in 2023.

• Crime rates declined across each individual category, including murders (-26%), rape offenses (-26%), robberies (-18%), aggravated assaults (-13%), and reported property crimes (-15%).

The FBI’s report carries a few caveats: It only covers 72% of the ~19,000+ total law enforcement agencies in America, as many local departments regularly fail to meet the FBI’s reporting deadline. The data also depends on the accuracy of each agency’s individual report, which typically varies from precinct to precinct.

But, despite its potential inaccuracies, the FBI’s data tracks with other reports that show a smaller, but still significant annual drop in violent crime so far this year.

• Jeff Asher, co-founder of criminal justice data firm AH Datalytics, said the FBI’s data is “almost certainly overstated by a good bit,” but the general trend showing a large decrease in violent crime is still accurate.
• The Major Cities Chiefs Association, which regularly surveys 70 major metropolitan police departments, found a 17% annual drop in murders over the first quarter of 2024, with similar declines for rapes and aggravated assaults.

Big picture: Following a notable increase during the first year of the Covid pandemic, US violent crime rates have fallen in each of the past three years. Overall, violent crime rates today are ~50% lower compared to America’s recorded peak in the early 1990s.

📊 Flash poll: In your opinion, which option best describes the current state of violent crime in America?

• An extremely serious problem
• A moderately serious problem
• A not too serious problem
• A not at all serious problem

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🇰🇿🐴 The last remaining “true” species of wild horse was reintroduced to Kazakhstan. The species, named Przewalski's horse, is thought to be the only wild horse breed alive today that doesn’t originate from domesticated horses who later escaped. Przewalski's horses roamed the grasslands of Central Asia for thousands of years prior to the 1960s, when hunting and industrialization drove them to near-extinction. This month, seven Przewalski’s horses were flown in and released in Kazakhstan as part of a wider reintroduction plan.

🇳🇴 Norway discovered Europe’s largest proven deposit of rare earth metals. The deposit contains ~8.8 million metric tons of total rare earth oxides used across a range of industrial applications, including ~1.5 million metric tons of magnet-related metals used in EVs and wind turbines. Norway says the deposits will advance the EU’s goal of breaking China's dominance in the rare earth market, where Beijing currently accounts for ~70% of global production.

💥 Israel-Hamas war: Israeli officials are claiming Hamas has rejected Israel’s proposal for a ceasefire deal that would result in the phased release of hostages captured by Hamas on October 7, according to multiple reports. Hamas officials yesterday confirmed that the group responded to the deal, and said their leaders requested certain “amendments.” The news comes one day after the UN Security Council voted to support the Israeli-backed ceasefire plan, joining the G7 and other major world governments in backing the deal.

“Mr. President, the nuclear option is on the table”... is what TerraPower, a nuclear energy startup backed by Bill Gates, probably said this week after breaking ground in Wyoming on what it hopes will be the first in a new generation of American nuclear power plants.

Why it matters: Many see nuclear power as essential to a green energy transition, since it can be used to generate electricity without emitting any carbon dioxide as a by-product. This Wyoming project is the first time in about four decades that a company has tried to get an advanced reactor up and running as a commercial power plant in the US.

A new type of nuclear reactor

TerraPower’s nuclear reactors, which are designed to be smaller and cheaper than traditional reactors of old, have a few things going for them (which is nice):

• Instead of using highly pressurized water for neutron moderation and coolant, TerraPower’s reactors utilize liquid sodium – allowing it to operate at lower pressures and reducing the need for thick shielding.
• Chris Levesque, TerraPower’s CEO, told the NY Times that its reactors should ultimately produce electricity at half the cost of traditional nuclear plants.

But challenges still remain. Namely – meeting the budget ($4 billion) and timeline (2030-ish). The only two American reactors built in the last 30 years, Vogtle Units 3 and 4 in Georgia, cost $35 billion, more than double initial estimates, and arrived seven years behind schedule. TerraPower’s reactor also still requires approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to begin operating commercially.

It’s not just a painting. It has personality and is always communicating, reaching out from its perch. It has sacrificed much to deserve the ability to reveal its narrative. It has an understanding of its environment, and knows its responsibility to share and give back the life it was given.

Steve Tate has been giving life to abstract art for 20 years, with paintings hanging in some of the world’s finest homes. These aren’t just pictures on a wall. It’s art – pure, dynamic, and from the heart.

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“With King Charles being such a big fan of Wallace and Gromit, we couldn’t think of a better way to draw his attention."

• Much like a visiting foreign dignitary, Animal Rising, a UK animal-rights protest group, is playing to the personal interests of King Charles III in an attempt to spur favorable political action – though their approach is decidedly less diplomatic. Yesterday, Animal Rising vandalized the first completed portrait of the UK king by sticking Wallace and Gromit-themed posters to its protective glass, in a demonstration aimed at drawing attention to what Animal Rising describes as "awful suffering” across farms endorsed by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA). While Animal Rising is urging King Charles to suspend his royal patronage of the RSPCA, the charity group itself denies claims of impropriety, saying its efforts are “the best way to help farmed animals right now.”

📰 Stat of the Day: Stay vigilant out there, folks. In the US, the number of partisan-backed news outlets designed to appear as impartial news sources has officially surpassed the number of real, local daily newspapers, according to a new report from misinformation tracking company NewsGuard. The firm identified at least 1,265 websites that present themselves as neutral outlets, but publish content reflecting a partisan perspective or have undisclosed partisan funding/ownership (aka the opposite of The DONUT, where employee-backed, influence-free nonpartisan news is our bread and butter). There were 1,213 daily local newspapers in the US as of last year.

🤔 Did You Know? The world’s first submersible with a documented record of use in combat dates back to the American Revolutionary War. In 1775, American David Bushnell developed an underwater vessel as a means to attach explosive charges to British ships – though it failed to succeed across multiple attempts.

📰 Worth a Read: Abracadabra! How magic can help us understand animal minds → (Knowable Magazine)

• ☝️ The world's largest convenience store – a Buc-ee’s in Luling, Texas – officially opened for business this week; the 75,000-square-foot location is ~30x larger than a traditional convenience store, with a total of 120 fuel pumps.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

in partnership with The Cold Life

• 💰 US markets closed mixed yesterday (S&P: +0.3%; Dow: -0.3%; Nasdaq: +0.9%); the S&P 500 and Nasdaq both ended trading at fresh record highs.
• 🍎 All about Apple: Affirm’s buy now, pay later services will soon be available for purchases on Apple devices, both companies announced. | Elon Musk threatened to ban Apple devices at his respective companies if the tech giant integrates OpenAI at the operating system level. | Apple shares closed up 7% yesterday to reach a new record high.
• 🚘🔌 GM trimmed its projections for sales and production of all-electric vehicles this year; the company also said it expects EVs to make up 8% of US sales industry-wide in 2024.

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SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🏈🎮 Christian McCaffrey, star running back for the San Francisco 49ers, will be the cover athlete for Madden 25.
• 🎾 Warner Bros. Discovery’s TNT Sports signed a 10-year deal for exclusive rights to broadcast the French Open tennis tournament in the US beginning next year.
• 🧑‍🍳 The 2024 James Beard Award winners, a collection of the best restaurants and individual chefs in America, were announced yesterday.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

in partnership with BIA Worldwide

• 🚀 The crewed return of Boeing’s Starliner space capsule from the ISS was extended by six days to June 18 due to a range of factors, NASA announced.
• 🪐❄️ Mars’ tallest volcanoes feature on and off patches of water frost, upending scientists’ previous belief that it was impossible for frost to form at Mars’ equator, per a new study.
• 🏃‍♀️ Female athletes have faster reaction times and make fewer errors when on their period, even though they feel their performance suffers, new research suggests.

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MISCELLANEOUS

• 🎓🇨🇳 Four American instructors from Iowa’s Cornell College were stabbed in a public park in China on Monday; a 55-year-old suspect was arrested, with the incident believed to be isolated. | 🇲🇼 Malawi Vice President Dr. Saulos Chilima was confirmed to have died in a plane crash Monday morning that killed nine other people onboard.
• 🏥 A Florida law that fully blocks gender-affirming care for minors and partially restricts such treatments for adults was struck down by a federal judge yesterday as unconstitutional. (Read more)
• ⚖️ Hunter Biden was convicted yesterday on all three felony charges of lying about his drug use to illegally buy a firearm; he’s the first son of a sitting US president to be criminally convicted; Biden’s sentencing date has yet to be set. (Read more)

CLICKBAIT

• 🤖⌚ How to Use ChatGPT to Give Yourself More Free Time.

The Salem High School Class of 1944 held their 80th reunion in Oregon this past weekend, extending their previously held world record for longest-running class reunion in history. 

• Their commencement was held June 1, 1944 – or five days before D-Day. All of the attendees are now over 95.

🥞 Pancakes for everyone... Six class members attended the event, held at their local Denny's (per usual). The restaurant even treated the seniors to lunch. "We just wanted to make them feel special," said restaurant manager Bobbi Avants. "After 80 years, they deserve it."  

Can you name the top three highest-grossing films of the 1990s?

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1. Titanic (1997) – $1.84 billion
2. Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999) – $924 million
3. Jurassic Park (1993) – $914 million

Source → Wikipedia